Almost 200 years on from Trafalgar, for the first time since the 18th century, it has now been confirmed that the French have a bigger fleet than us :P

Which brings up questions, and on a serious note, of the readiness and capability of a declining (well - purposely scaled down, but whatever) armed forces and its ability to handle a suprising and massive war.
There seems to be, particularly in the Anglo-American relationship, a scaling down of forces, or a reduction in deployment, in favour of better technology and smaller, more effective forces. But is this the right thing to do? The Royal Navy, especially under the 2004 cutbacks, has turned Britain in to a second rate naval power, where once it was the first, and only.
Now, I'm not tearful and nostalgic over an imperial past and years of glory, but with such a future ahead, where power lies, definately, in Asia, can democratic Western nations afford such cutbacks?
Aparantly it's better because we need to "adapt" to today's warfare, but what happens if, for utter example, China actually does react over Thaiwan's increasing want of autonomy? Chinese officials show no quarms about reacting against outside intervention, and to me it almost sounds like eagerness for conflict with Western powers.
But this is all an extreme example. But the situation could arise. How do small forces tackle such a situation?
Are we looming in to a state of unreadiness the like we saw on the outbreak of the Second World War?

Almost 200 years on from Trafalgar, for the first time since the 18th century, it has now been confirmed that the French have a bigger fleet than us :P

RAF > ALL

Doesn't massively superior air power pretty well trump any naval power?

You need it all - Army, Navy, and Airforce. You need those carriers as much as you do the 101st Airborne, and them as much as you need seven squandrons of F-15s.

Akipt is right. As far as the U.S. goes, aircraft carriers such as the Nimitz class warship (currently the largest aircraft carrier class in the US Navy) allow our air power to strike pretty much anywhere in the world, whereas we'd otherwise have to resort to using only land bases. Soon the Lockheed Martin X-22 fighter will replace most if not all F-16s, F-15s, F-14s, and Harrier jets. Couple with Naval power, we're talking about an awesome strike force.

but what happens if, for utter example, China actually does react over Thaiwan's increasing want of autonomy? Chinese officials show no quarms about reacting against outside intervention, and to me it almost sounds like eagerness for conflict with Western powers.
Why should we care? Taiwan is Chinese, same as Chechnya is Russian and no one elses business, and if say Texas wanted to be independent I coudn't care less if the place is retaken by force. I certainly would not risk my live or that of any fellow European over some God forsaken island somewhere on the other side of the globe.

'Why should we care?'

- It was a hypothetical example. Though with a tad of reality.
I'm not saying we should. But it could be likely that Western intervention occured. China seems to have no quarms with crushing any sign of independence or further autonomy in Thaiwan. And, naturally, that's a bad thing.

We call that "oppressive" in the humane world.

Linlweniel. Taiwan has extremely strong economical ties to most of the world. They're a veritable powerhouse when it comes to manufacturing electronical components, as well as other items - like textiles. Western corporations have millions upon millions invested in Taiwan. Also, China is an oppressive dictatorial regime.
Sounds like Kuwait to me.

If China goes for Taiwan, the world will respond.

Now for on topic:
As has been mentioned, fleet needs the airforce as much as the army needs both. They're all crucial for different tasks and situations. For instance, only infantry or land armor can hold ground. A city for example. You simply can't occupy territory without putting someone there with a gun to keep others out.
In the end, however, it's rarely about who has the bigger of the individual three, but who has the most overwhelming combination of the three. And most importantly, which of the forces that has the most flexible and mobile setup.

Take the US for instance. In fact, take a Nimitz carrier group as an example.
It's comprised, in reality, of all three subcomponents. A carrier group normally focuses on its air strike capabilities, launching its hornets and tomcats towards landbased targets. However, they also carry a strong infantry contingent (marines, or seals) which usually deploy via hovercraft and can be on shore and ready to move on ground objectives in short order.
To protect the carrier, and its immense strike capabilities, it's trailed by anti-air, anti-ship and anti-sub backups. Destroyers, cruiers, frigates, etc.
In detail:
- Nimitz carrier (long range strikes, shore deployment of infantry units)
- Ticonderoga cruisers (long range ballistic (missile) strikes vs land or sea)
- Arleigh Burke destroyer (Anti-air warfare, to cover the battlegroup vs air)
- Spruance destroyers / Oliver Hazard Perry frigates (Anti Submarine Warfare)
- Submarines (usually 2, according to my info site, anti-ship & submarine)
- Supply convoy ships
(all this from www.navalinstitute.org)

As you can see, the mesh between the three "branches" is pretty much complete here. Naturally, the US owns and operates the largest fleet in the world, but it also has an extremely impressive setup. A carrier group is alone able to handle everything from blowing shit up to defending itself to really dig in and cover their own tails.

On Britain's naval cutbacks:
It will affect your ability to have a presence overseas. Today's warfare is usually comprised of three stages: The aerial/coastal bombardment phase, where ballistic and aerial assaults are carried out towards surface targets and standing military regiments - to soften up the opposition. The armored offensive, where ground armor, mechanized infantry and helos move in to wipe out or pave way through whatever ground forces are left. This is usually heavilly backed up by aerial strike teams. And lastly, the occupational phase, where normal infantry units roll in to relieve the battleweary and dig in. This is where the engineers, MPs etc come into play. Except combat engineers, they've been there the whole time, but they're crazy motherfuckers.

Normally phase 1 is initiated via sea. Unless you have a strong presence at sea, you have to rely on allies to be able to perform your air strikes, and you can forget a ballistic bombardment. Also, you'll have to fly in all your armor and infantry to someone else, and then roll over the border in order to claim objectives, instead of just invading via the sea, scoring a few airfields, and use their own airbases to fly in your forces.

That means that unless you find an ally willing to let you have an immense military presence within their borders while you prep for an assault, you'll be completely SOL when it comes to military offense.

At least, that's how I'd analyze it.

The Royal Navy, especially under the 2004 cutbacks, has turned Britain in to a second rate naval power, where once it was the first, and only.
It's been a long time since it was "the only", say since before the war of 1812.

Frankly it is the fault of pacifist weenies like yourself that complain about military actions and the like that cause your government to cut spending and trim away at your military power.

A carrier group normally focuses on its air strike capabilities, launching its hornets and tomcats towards landbased targets. However, they also carry a strong infantry contingent (marines, or seals) which usually deploy via hovercraft and can be on shore and ready to move on ground objectives in short order.
The carrier group does not usually carry and infantry contigent. They are usually just comprised of air strikes or able to combat water borne enemies. The purpose of a carrier srike group is to protect the carrior at all costs. Yes there are secondary roles but the carrier is number one. Sometimes a carrier group will carry a single seal unit within the group.

As for infantry yes the navy deals with that too but via a totally different group called and Amphibius attack group consisting of Carrier like ships with floodable bays to carry hovercrafts small boats etc. These operate separately from carrier groups.

But yes no single navy will win a war but the combination of Navy, Airforce, and Army makes this possible. But also have to look into the growing technology too where smaller forces are more viable due to faster deployments times and equipment.

Take a Nimitz carrier group off the Atlantic coast can make it to the Gulf in just over a week depending on cooperation from egypt with the canal. And the downscale of airbases within the US and abroad basically makes for single staging areas to deploy troops abroad.
And with smaller robotic reconnisance aircraft we no longer have to wait for the slower manned aircraft to arrive since we can pack them along with us. Not to mention Tactical weapons which have been widely used recently to "soften" fronts and cause confusion to allow the smaller better geared infantry/artillery to quickly move in and engage.

EDIT (Thormir): Fixed quotes

The carrier group is there to support the carrier, whether it's in its offensive or defensive capabilities. It's not like the Tomahawk's on the support vessels have a tag that says "anti-ship only". They're quite capable of firing on shore targets, and have in the past.

As for the infantry... even if not all carriers carry them, I know some do. Thanks discovery channel :p
In any case, as you mentioned, there are specialized carriers for infantry and amphibious armor deployment (Saipan class carriers?).

As for the infantry... even if not all carriers carry them, I know some do. They don't, spend 5 years on carrier like i did and then tell me different. And yes I know about tomahawks, I kinda grouped em into air strike capabilities. Maybe in other countries but not in the US the most we carry is a single seal team usually, once during training saw army helo team about it.

yeah called amphibious ships they look kinda like carriers but they arent most they can land usually is a helo or Harrier or STOL's. LHA's and LHD's.

http://www.chinfo.navy.mil/navpalib/factfile/ffiletop.html#ships

But anyways for the most part we agree even with cutback it who best combines the sea/air/land that can win.

That link isn't working for me.
Question, and a completely semantical one, wouldn't a "carrier" be a vessel capable of carrying other vessels into combat? Even if they aren't of Nimitz size, the smaller amphibious landing carriers still lug around Harriers, plus Helos and hovercrafts. I know the runway is too short for anything that lacks VTOL capabilities, but still.

Yes it would but in the US Navy the word carrier is used for Aircraft carrier. Like if you look at the LHA's etc they are craft or ships.

'Frankly it is the fault of pacifist weenies like yourself that complain about military actions and the like that cause your government to cut spending and trim away at your military power.'

- Oh, I thought it was due to Geoff Hoon's brilliantly intelligent mind.

Weenie? *Sigh* I'm embarassed for you.

The utility of surface combat ships is becoming more and more scrutinized in the age of missiles by a number of countries. At present they are still critical, but who knows how well they will adapt to future conditions?

Once battleships were the end-all-be-all of naval power. They were supplanted by fleet carriers as aircraft proved their effectiveness. As carriers become more vulnerable to attack and expensive to operate, perhaps another form of vessel will emerge (missile bombardment subs? unmanned drone ships?) as the new queen of the seas.

Regarding the decline of the Royal Navy, perhaps it is being done faster than is wise but it is a direct response to political pressures from a public more and more wary of military entanglements. The UK's overseas responsibilities have shrunk with the loss of their empire and it may not be necessary to maintain the navy it once had. I suspect you will see similar developments in France and Italy before long as well. It's not as if any European country is engaging in a big naval buildup at the moment.

The formerly third world countries that are building up their navies (China and India primarily) are doing so to fill the void left by withdrawing western powers. Perhaps their time has come and they will have to be treated more as equals. We had better adapt to it because it is reality.

I am somewhat less optimistic than others here that the world would do anything but express regrets if Taiwan is attacked by China. The US may or may not intervene. No one else would even think about it, having neither the ability or will to do anything other than say "gee, that is too bad". Sure, Taiwan has democracy, a big manufacturing economy for electronics and sympathy from the US, but China has a much bigger market with the west salivating over the money to be made there. Being democratic did not save Taiwan from losing official recognition from the majority of the world once China began bribing or threatening everyone into taking away that recognition and it won't garner them any help from the west if they are attacked (unless the US decides to get involved).

you got questions?

We got answers.

http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/index.html

The key is how do you project power, and where do you want to project it?
The Aircraft Carrier is the ultimate non nuclear projection of military might. The ability to move a completely impentratable airbase anywhere in the world gives the very few nations of the world that own and operate these ships an extreme leverage.

Imagine if instead of the Bismark, Hitler had pushed for the creation of 2 Carriers. How much more effective would the Luftwaffe have been in the battle of Britian
Think for a minute on the consequences if Pearl Harbor had caught our carriers in port. Japan would have owned the Pacific.

Weenie? *Sigh* I'm embarassed for you.
This coming from the guy who calls people "Susan" and asks if they are coming on to him?

When have I ever done that, Jackie?

Imagine if instead of the Bismark, Hitler had pushed for the creation of 2 Carriers. How much more effective would the Luftwaffe have been in the battle of Britian


Aircraft carriers would have been largely irrelevant in the Battle of Britain since land-based planes were in every respect superior and the English industrial centers were well within the range of the Luftwaffe's medium-ranged bombers and their escort fighters. If anything, they would have been the little more than plump targets for the British maritime forces to destroy with their local air superiority.

Germany needed a far stronger naval arm than just two aircraft carriers, they were completley outclassed by the British fleet and the Kriegsmarine knew it, which was why they demanded air superiority over Britain before commiting to the the Sealion invasion. There are thousands of "ifs" about certain critical points in the war, but Germany's failure to secure air supremacy over Britain was not related to naval power.

The basic tenets of the WW2 situation are still roughly the case for Britain. Their airfields at home give them more than enough striking power for any target in Europe. The only reason they'd need a strong navy anymore is to project power to the south Atlantic (which nobody really cares about) or the south Pacific, and since their interests there are now primarily economic, it doesn't really make sense to maintain as significant a Navy. Naval forces are expensive, and while powerful, quite situationally useful. There really are no major naval powers left except the US and Britain, Russia's fleet is a joke, practically scrapped, and no longer an enemy anyway.

The real issue at hand here is by how much of a margin NATO feels it needs to out-gun the rest of the world. As it stands, there is no power on earth that could stand against the combined military might of NATO, and very few that would give even the US alone significant trouble. It's certainly good doctrine to maintain overwhelming force, but once you have that, how much more do you need? This question has been asked since the 1950s, and sadly most people always wanted more, regardless of what they had now.

Why should we care? Taiwan is Chinese, same as Chechnya is Russian and no one elses business, and if say Texas wanted to be independent I coudn't care less if the place is retaken by force. I certainly would not risk my live or that of any fellow European over some God forsaken island somewhere on the other side of the globe.
Remembering from an old history reference I ran across at work a few years back on the topic of Taiwan stated that the little island wasn't really under the control of the Chinese. the original link i read is kept inside an internal network (thus i can't link it) but i did come across a decent history of Taiwan. And what I've read showed that China didn't have any solid control (or lagerly any interest in the little island untill the later 19th centry).

It's more of China's claiming that they are reunifying that was never part of china in the first place (Tibet had the lossing end of this arguement already).

here's the link, pray I i got it working right

http://www.taiwandc.org/history.htm

You can also google 'history of taiwan' for more sites


On the topic of military success. It's mutualy agreed that a wining military force is all three brances (Air Force, Army, Navy). I didnt' mention the Marines as they are a part of the Navy and their jobs tie into the big Navy picture (Marines secure a beachhead for naval landing craft and allow other ships to get closer to the land from my understanding).

As far as the shrinking of the British Royal Navy, that's the trade off when you change from a world empire to a singular country. Revloutions, uprising and lack of desire to keep various colonies also cut back the need for a massive fleet. Of course the budget cuts of late to save some cash in the national budget is a pain in the ass things that politicians do.

Clan Piedraarena

EDIT: spelling goofs.....